Adobe Photoshop CS4 Upgrade

Awsome upgrade. Some things take a little getting use to (long time user so moving some things were ackward at first), but change over was easy. Runs extremely well.

Excellent upgrade. I was surprised at the extent of the improvements. Raw file processing has been improved a lot. Definitely worth it.

I took the suggetion of others and downloaded the trial version before purchasing and I'm glad I did. Installed on a 2.4 GHz dual processor Windows XP computer with 3+ GB of memory this CS4 is noticeably slower than CS3 during panning, zooming and other graphics functions. (probably need a graphics board upgrade, I guess, but you would think that the software would detect my configuration and at least not degrade things) And it appears to be buggy, with several cliches including not always updating the icons in the layers pallet and not always updating the photo after making modifications. Also, for some reason, the wheel on my mouse no longer makes the photo zoom in and out as it does on earlier versions of Photoshop - and it's a microsoft mouse - never had problems before. Of course it may be user error and I suppose I ought to be thankful that the software installed without problems. Perhaps when I get more used to some of the differences I'll be happier and actually purchase the upgrade but I think that Adobe needs to patch this product first.

If you really need some of the functions of this upgrade, such as RAW for a newly introduced camera, then I can see trying to use this product, bugs and all. But if you are just planning to upgrade for upgrade sake I would recommend waiting until more users indicate that this program is ready for prime time. I know that's what I'll do.

Update: Under CS4 preferences I found a place where I can select using the scroll wheel to zoom so that problem is fixed. But the issues about updating the photos and layer icons still exist even after I made sure that I am not using any GPUs (Graphics processing units) so any issues regarding hardware and drivers should not be present. Too bad since the Adobe site does show some interesting improvements in CS4 over CS3. Hope they release their revision soon. Meanwhile I'll continue with CS3.

I upgraded from CS2 and the changes are worth the price. I shoot my photographs RAW so ease of processing is important and timesaving. I'm glad I upgraded.

You'd better download a test drive from Adobe first and see if this works. 1) took two days to get it installed. finally had to copy DVD to the hardfile and then start install. 2) Install completed, but now the brushes don't work at all.. My system meets the requirements per the box. I have Pentium 4 3.2ghz, 2g RAM, gobs of open hardfile space, but it appears my video card may be inadequate. I've read the Adobe forums for help, but it appears this is a wide spread problem and a new video card MAY fix it, but not for sure.. There was even suggestions in the Adobe forum about doing a scratch install!! I didn't feel like spending another $150 on a new video card in the hopes of it working, or spending a week reinstalling windows and all my apps, so I've returned CS4.. I'll wait till the dust settles before getting this upgrade.